SEX SELLS
Especially if you film it and put it on the internet!
Thanks to the internet, access to pornography is as easy as it has ever been. Gone are the days of magazines with pull-out pages and DVD’s. If you want to satisfy your urges, all you have to do is google what you want. With this ease of access comes an unbelievably great demand and the pornographic industry cannot get enough adult entertainers. Every year in the U.S.A, thousands of women (and men) travel to LA to make their dreams come true, in search of money and sometimes fame.
In an article recently published by the Independent, they spoke to Derek Hay, an adult entertainment expert and founder of LA Direct Models, based in Las Vegas, Nevada. According to him, the average pay for a woman for a woman/man scene is $1000. For many women, this type of pay is more than they would otherwise make in a normal job. Women on women scenes pay slightly less at $700-$800. These rates differ by 10%-20% depending on the adult actress, their agent and if they have a following already. Hay states that their pay is significantly increased if they engage in sexual acts that they have never engaged in before- “for the right girl, for whatever reason which could vary, to do acts like their first anal scene, first scene with three, four or five guys, those scenes could pay premium rates”. Hay describes these premium rates as being between $2000 and $6000 per scene. This is good money, especially if adult actresses partake in one scene a week. You may be saying to yourself ”how long can these women work in an industry that cares so much about aesthetics? Surely, as these women age, their demand decreases?” Hay says that this is wrong. The most watched pornographic material is ‘teen’ and ‘milf’, meaning that a serious and popular adult actresses’ career can span for decades.
The pay that the talent receive in the porn industry ties in directly with the increase in usage of streaming sites that offer porn for a premium monthly/yearly subscription. Sites like these allow adult actors to earn more money as the revenue increases. This does have a down side. Many of the videos made for these streaming services are often illegally uploaded to other free streaming sites, which means that those videos do not make the same money that videos on their original websites would have made. It is for this reason that certain sites such as PornHub have a free service but also the option to pay for a subscription that comes with many perks, such as high-definition videos and more interaction with the talent. A new genre of pornography that has recently emerged is that of ‘Feminist’ porn. This is pornography that is run by feminist women that demands better pay for those taking part in the videos. It also does not require the women in the videos to engage in anything that could be considered demeaning, as is sometimes the case with regular pornography.
If you’re interested in a job in the pornographic industry but fear you do not have the required utensils at your disposal to be the acting talent, fear not! There are many other jobs within the industry behind the camera which also pay good money per scene. Directors of pornographic films receive approximately $1000-$1500 a day. Writers earn $250-$400 a day for writing the scenes (even though I am not entirely sure how much of a script is required for most pornographic movies). Cinematographers receive between $500-$700, sometimes even higher depending on the quality of the video camera that they use. The higher the quality, the more money. Sound technicians receive the least money at between $100-$250 and photographers, many of whom publish their photographs in paid sets, are paid around $500 a shoot.
There is no doubt that the pornographic industry is a money maker but by no means is it an easy industry to be a part of. Most actors and actresses fail to make the cut or find the demands of the job to be too much for them to handle. Despite this, men and women still flock to the industry every year. Just goes to show, sex sells.
With thanks to Ellis Wiggins
